


of love and study breaks.

by crostiina



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Fluff, That's it that's the plot, soft wlw pynch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 19:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21281933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crostiina/pseuds/crostiina
Summary: Ada Parrish is very tired and very worried about her essay. Rowan Lynch is very talented in the art of cuddling all of that away.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	of love and study breaks.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clawsnbeak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clawsnbeak/gifts).

> for Michelle, because she loves wlw pynch and it's her birthday and she deserves it and I love her.

Ada wasn't used to being kind to herself, and it was a business choice. You couldn't put your wellbeing first if you were just a nobody raised in a trailer in god-knows-where Virginia and wanted to succeed in life. So yeah, sure, lowering her head and barely fighting back as her father consistently ruined her life had been harder than setting the entire trailer on fire, but you couldn't really do anything after that, so it was the better choice. The same way going to public school and maybe getting a part-time job as a waitress or in a shop would have been better and less exhausting than carefully scheduling three jobs with an expensive private school that was impossibly hard to pay and way too easy to fail. The same way not lying and not juggling everything together at once and not constantly losing sleep and energy and sometimes weight would have been easier than what she had been doing since she was barely sixteen. But Ada didn't want easy if it meant not going to college or doing it but in a shitty community one with a lifetime debt weighing on her shoulders. She didn't want easy if it meant a tiny apartment, still in god-knows-where Virginia, struggling to pay bills and make ends meet with a time consuming and ordinary job and an ordinary life with the trailer she had been raised in still somewhere at the corner of her eye. She didn't want easy if it meant just staying down in the mud she had been born into and never having a chance at something more, at something brighter, extraordinary.

She wanted bone-crushing, more-than-she-could-take, passing-out-in-the-middle-of-the-night hard. She wanted to put every moment of her time and inch of her body and synapsis in her brain to work until every part of her burned, until she couldn't stay awake anymore, until everything about her was asking her to stop only to keep going. She wanted to do everything in her power and then something more, even if meant being tired and never really awake and barely alive. She wanted to close her eyes at night, tired and desperate and alone, and know she was al least going somewhere. She wanted to be sure that with every step and breath and night she spent studying and losing sleep, she was building herself and extraordinary life. She wanted to make herself into something exceptional, with a future so bright it was going to dissipate even the dark hole that her past had burned into her.

Ada had to become something great or nothing at all, which was why sometimes even small setbacks looked impossible to deal with, horrifying rocks in her paths that made her stomach tighten and everything inside her jump. And that biology essay was almost done and due in four days but she couldn't wrap her head around it, because it felt "good" and nothing more and good meant the professor was going to forget her as soon as he put her grade up and being forgotten meant not being picked for more projects and seminaries.

So here she was, going over her own words, again and again, correcting and outlining and leaving notes to write in more things even where there probably wasn't any more she could fit regarding that same topic. Ada heard the door of her dorm room opening, somewhere at the back of her mind, but didn't turn around to look. She was too focused on _just one more line_ and _I have to fix this paragraph first_ and _god what does this even mean? _to remember that it was normal and probably expected of her to at least acknowledge that someone had come into her space. She just kept reading and talking to herself, ignoring the purposefully heavy steps behind her.

“Well, fuck me I guess.”

A loud voice right to her ear would have been enough to make everyone jump in their seat, but Ada didn't. Because she knew it by heart and there was no way for it to scare her, not when it sounded exactly like home.

She just breathed in, trying to keep all of her strengths from dissipating.

"I'm sorry, I just- I can't understand what's missing." she whispered, tapping her pen on the dest again and again, still not turning around.

Rowan let out a loud and excessively labored breath, wrapping her hands around her hair to pull them up in a sloppy ponytail and leaning over her to look at the pages occupying all the space of the desk.

“An ending. That’s what.”

“I don’t even know if it’s good enough to be worth finishing.”

“Woah. Don’t be _too_ confident, now.” she whispered, keeping her hair in place with one hand, as she ran the other one through it. It was so soothing she didn’t even try to keep in a pleased groan.

“I think you should put it down and take the night off. Tomorrow you can look at it again and see if something’s really off or - and that’s just me, but I’m probably right - if you’re just being a dick to yourself.”

Sometimes it was absolutely infuriating, how sweet Rowan could sound. Her voice was high pitched, a sweet sprinkle of cold rain on sun-burnt skin, something special and private that made her world slow down, gain back color.

"I don't know, Ro-" she whispered, already halfway to giving up, still trying hard to fight back the urge to just let herself _be_ with her.

“I know.”

It was a whisper right to her ear, her breath light and warm over her neck. Ada tried to stay still, to focus on the words again, but then Rowan kissed the nape of her neck and she just _melted_, breathing out and letting her head flop over her arms, just submitting herself to the sensation.

Rowan laughed, a warm, impossibly sweet thing, and Ada thought there just wasn't something important enough to be worth depriving herself of the wonderful process of letting herself soak in such a sound.

"Of course you do." she whispered back, giggling as Rowan slowly pulled her chair back with her still on it, enough that she could just pick her up between her arms like a movie bride or just how imagined parents did with a child asleep on the couch.

“Shit, Parrish. Is this the weight of knowledge?” Rowan joked, pretending to be excessively fatigued as she carried her to the bed.

“More like the weight of this ass.” she whispered back, comically smooth, raising an eyebrow and winning a sweet and quick laugh from her girlfriend.

Ada didn't like to be treated as something delicate and fragile, but she was so tired and it was so needed, that she just laughed, looking at the smug and willingly comically concentrated expression on Rowan's face. She was so beautiful it made her heart stop, not it the piercing blue of her eyes or the pretty fluttering of her long eyelashes or the soft, red curve of her mouth that sometimes felt like it belonged to a fairytale princess. She was beautiful in how loud and unflattering her laugh was, in the scrunching of the nose when she was upset, the way all of her expressions were, exaggerate and fun and so wonderfully raw.

Loving Rowan was so easy and wonderful it made Ada feel bright and soft and new.

She let out a sigh of relief as Rowan laid beside her, cupping the back of her neck with one hand and guiding her to press her face against her shoulder. Ada swiftly moved lower, groaning louder as she brushed her cheek against the softness of her breasts before letting herself just lay there, delicate fingers already brushing between her hair, stroking it so gently she was absolutely sure she could have died right at that moment and be happy.

“Better now?”

“You are a saint.” she muttered, feeling the world already warm and easy and less cruel.

“It’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it.” Rowan whispered back, leaning just enough to leave a good number of kisses on the top of her head.

Ada groaned again, deciding she definitely wanted more. She dragged herself up again, close enough to be able to brush her nose against her cheek. Rowan, always eager, leaned down just enough to meet her lips, setting fire to Ada's insides and waking her soul up again. She pointed her elbows on the mattress and pulled herself up, just enough to kiss her again, slowly, feeling warm and overjoyed and alive, the way she had never felt before Rowan carefully made her way into her tired heart.

"Now that's nice." Rowan whispered, making Ada laugh again, something loud that made her feel young and different and more than just a bunch of tired bones and freckled skin.

Rowan groaned in what sounded like pain, her brows furrowed as she cupped her face with both hands, carefully stroking her thumbs again Ada’s cheeks.

“What?”

“I just love you so fucking much.”

Ada's heart stopped, like it always did when she said things like that, because honestly, who wouldn't react like that. Honestly, who wouldn't feel absolutely blessed by the mere thought of being loved by a wonderful creature such as Rowan Lynch.

Who wouldn’t just knock down walls and let years of pain spill out just to be able to love her right back, to be ready and deserving and right.

“I know.”


End file.
